Wraith

Howdy!
I just finished the Death Proclaimed trilogy made by Fidchell (see my previous review!), but I'm not satisfied! I want more horror rpgmaker2000/2003 games, so here I am, playing Wraith, a rm2k3 horror adventure game by Neok (or Neo Kuriyo). This legendary developer is probably more popular due to a masterpiece called Alter Aila Genesis, a classic game that I will probably review sooner or later, in fact so far I only gave a look to the older (and less linear, so for me more interesting) version, Alter Aila (reviewed in 2020 HERE!).

Anyway today I played a totally different game, called Wraith, the first game posted here on Rpgmaker.net by this dev: a 2008 horror adventure that was later followed by a 2010 sequel called Sainth (there was also another third episode planned, Candice, but it was never realized), but that will be another tale for another day, of course. Wraith is about 4 hours long, and starts with Doctor Victor Ristof Valhallas and his assistant, Mr. Wellington choosing a group of university students to do a three day workshop in a big mansion in Australia. We play as one of these students, called Kana, that partecipates to this workshop with her best friend Lily (that instead will be the protagonist of Sainth), and all goes well, until one night she explores the mansion and finds Doctor Valhallas and Mr. Wellington doing some experiments... on something called Wraith, a soul-sucking entity. Anyway (oh, what a surprise!) things go horribly wrong and Kana will have to fight the Wraith, now free, to survive!


What a surprise! Well, this is a *survival horror*, and they lost the game, sadly!

So Kana in this game has to save the servants and the other students in the manor from the Wraith and find a way to destroy the evil entity before daybreak (IF you want a good ending, of course!) otherwise it will be a really bad day for someone!
The game is about exploration, and includes visiting various locations from laboratories to a lighthouse and a hedge maze, besides the mansion, of course, but there are also puzzles and various combat encounters against some mutant creatures! Oh yes, this is another Silent-hill-esque rpgmaker game! But WAIT! Here we aren't alone since we'll be sometimes assisted by some npcs.

Combat is... ok, I guess! It uses a sort of custom system that gives us different battle options from attacking with a gun (that is only found after the first half of the game) to run away, push enemies back or use items like a flashlight or a lightstone, that have various effects on the Wraith, our sworn enemy! Uh to tell the truth I found this battle system a bit confusing, sometimes it's not clear how much hitpoints you have left or maybe I was killed by the Wraith even if I had high health, anyway that's ok, as I wrote before, because enforces the feeling that we're in a survival horror: combat isn't enjoyable or rewarding like in rpgs, ans should be avoided whenever it's possible! Anyway I found the controls a bit "meh" since for example you need to press cancel to circle between the action, and the down key (yes! The DOWN key, not left or right arrow!) to choose the target, all of this while the monsters move forward to deal damage. Uhm not that good in my opinion.


We're not alone in combat, but few allies are worth having. And one is Cyrus, yes, Cyrus is very helpful!

Then there are the puzzle that are... well ok, I guess, I'm not fond of them, and sometimes I need a guide or a walkthrough but maybe that's me, anyway I see nothing wrong about how they're structured. The story is also pretty good except for some typos and Kana's behaviour... I mean, ok, she's the protagonist, but she makes a lot of stupid choices! Asie for these details I liked the story and characters (even if I found hilarious how dying people are able to give really long speeches before finally kicking the bucket!), and how despite being a horror story it includes some real comedy moments (I also do not mind the cliffhanger ending, very appropriated and often used in the horror stories).

Now, the best parts: graphics! If you played Alter Aila and Alter Aila Genesis you know that Neok uses edited charsets and custom made portraits, and this happens here too. That's good, and concerning mapping is the same thing, maps are in fact competently made, of the right proportions (no "overly large room" syndrome!) and well structured, even if there are some little errors, but overall I liked that. But here we have also many custom made slides realized to illustrate the most important moments of the story (even if later games showed us and that Neok's hand-drawn style improved a lot more, but this can be seen even just comparing the facesets of Alter Aila to those of the same characters in Alter Aila Genesis).
Music is also a pretty good selection, starting from "Koufuku No Zouhei", from the Avenger OST by Ali Project, and also sounds are pretty good. Nothing more to say here.


Good question, Kana! Go below and read the...

Final Verdict
Wraith is an ok game! I liked the story, the setting, the graphics... BUT I was not really fond of the combat system or the puzzles, I enjoyed some aspects of the game (aestetic and story), while I found others pretty much frustrating (the gameplay, and I must admit that while I often enjoyed flawed game with not-so-good mechanics, I could not really enjoy this one!). This does not make Wraith a bad game (but yes, it shows being one of Neok's first games, and also it's not my favourite considered other masterpieces we got from this author such as Alter Aila or Red Syndrome), but probably one that can really be appreciated by some players. So, if you like survival horror games I suggest you to give a try and see. On the bright side, everyone told me that Wraith was not really good, while Sainth is instead very good... so we will see if this is true...